F rance’s market regulator cleared Airbus SAS parent EADS NV and several current and former bosses over charges of insider trading and misleading markets, winding up a probe that has cast a shadow over the group. The probe was triggered after EADS suffered a dramatic fall in its share price in June, 2006, when it announced worsening delays in deliveries of its A380 super-jumbo. The AMF regulator Thursday also formally cleared German car maker Daimler AG and French media group Lagard�re SCA, both of whom are key EADS shareholders.

R esearch In Motion Ltd. RIM-T reported a sharp increase in quarterly profits, beating analyst estimates for its latest quarter.

A fter lowering expectations, Research in Motion Ltd. RIM-T has beaten them.

A judge in Los Angeles Superior Court pushed back a lawsuit against AIG from a financial planner who once worked for an AIG broker-dealer. Linda M. Harris, president of Independent Financial Group Inc., sued American International Group Inc., along with a large number of subsidiaries and executives, as well as accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

Lynne Ford will join ING Financial Solutions, the revamped annuity and rollover business of ING Groep NV, as chief executive, starting in mid-January. Ms. Ford is currently executive vice president and managing director of the retail retirement group at Wells Fargo & Co., where she oversees the sales, marketing and product management for individual retirement accounts and annuities.

There was a genuine sense of excitement among the ranks at Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc.

Alert us to this comment Please let us know if this reader’s comment breaks the editor’s rules and is obscene, abusive, threatening, unlawful, harassing, defamatory, profane or racially offensive by selecting the appropriate option to describe the problem. Close